New York Public Library introduces literary classics to Instagram, for free

Insta Novels launched only a week ago, taking classic novels and turning them into brightly-coloured, animated Instagram stories in the hope of encouraging the next generation to keep on reading.

The first book that made its way into the Insta Novels library is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Parts I and II can already be found on New York Public Library’s highlights feed.

The text is included in full, augmented throughout with bits of animation and modern illustrations by Magoz. To read, simply view the Story as normal, and hold your thumb down to stay on a page and complete reading the text. You can then lift your thumb to let the Story advance to the next page.

A nice touch — there is a small section in the bottom right corner marked as the place to hold your thumb, so it’s not only intuitive to figure out, you’re also not blocking any text in the process.

In the coming months, the library plans to release more to Instagram, includingFranz Kafka’s Metamorphisis, a surreal novella about a man who one day wakes up to find that he has metamorphosed into a fly,and Charlotte Perkins’ The Yellow Wallpaper, which is commonly regarded as one of the most important works of early feminist literature.

All novels added to the Insta Novels library will be free to read, with the only downside being that if you lose your place it will be a bit of a hassle to find it again (although they have included page numbers).

The best part about it? You’ll never have to worry about overdue library fees.